A recent BBC TV documentary has uncovered that Apple imagery activates the same parts of the brain in Apple customers and brand loyalists that religious imagery does in followers of that religion. The documentary, which aimed to understand how certain brands have become such large parts of the lives of their buyers, took one brave Apple fan, gave him an MRI, and neuroscientists studied his brain to see how it reacted when he was shown images of Apple and non-Apple products.

The fan in the study was Alex Brooks, the editor of World of Apple. He’s a self-described Apple evangelist, and while he was undergoing the MRI researchers could see that when images of Apple products were displayed in front of him, his brain reacted the way that a religious follower’s brain reacts when they’re shown imagery associated with a person’s religion.

The results of the scan–which are important to qualify as being a study of one person who’s already an unabashed Apple fanatic–proves that incredible devotion and loyalty to a brand or a religion emanate from the same parts of the human brain. It’s not so much that Apple fans are different; it’s that when any person shows incredible loyalty to a brand or product to the point of devotion, it stimulates the same parts of the brain.

The other takeaway from the documentary and the test is that the most successful companies are the ones that manage to find a way to trigger those parts of the brain. Once a brand or company gets there, there’s no going back, and the devotee is hooked on the products and the culture. It could very well be the key to building a brand that becomes a household name.

Don’t feel too smug, Windows fans: the documentary will move on to other brands like Twitter, Facebook, and possibly even Microsoft and Google in the near future as well.